An education tech startup has “hired” an AI avatar of the late computer science pioneer Alan Turing as a made-up executive, in what seems like a sure sign that the AI bubble has jumped the proverbial shark.
In a deeply self-congratulatory press release, the so-called Genius Group announced that it had appointed the Turing avatar as its “chief AI officer.” In the statement, the company kept referring to the chatbot as quote-unquote “Alan Turing.”
Said to have been trained on the English mathematician’s “style, expertise and body of work,” the chatbot also, apparently, is an expert in all things Genius Group.
“Genius Group have [sic] also pre-programmed their ‘Alan Turing’ AI Avatar with the strategies, product plans, AI technology and data of the company,” the long-winded press release reads.
Genius Group welcomes new Chief AI Officer, Alan Turing – resurrected after 70 years. I believe $GNS is the 1st US public listed company to appoint an #AI to its C-Suite (Although @elonmusk at @Tesla may be part-AI already).
Will all companies have AIs on their Board & Exec… pic.twitter.com/rMlx9sJYVQ
— Roger James Hamilton (@rogerhamilton) April 23, 2024
The stunt puts Genius Group’s name out there in a manner quite reminiscent of the dot-com bubble of the late 90s and early 2000s, when companies would do just about anything for a bit of attention as the market grew more and more oversaturated — until, of course, it went bust.
Like the Pets.com sock puppet of yore, the Turing avatar is clearly an attempt to boost the firm’s footprint amid choppy yet competitive waters. Indeed, Genius Group has fallen significantly from its 2022 IPO, when shares were going for $30 apiece, to its laughably low 40 cents per share valuation today.
To make the matter all the goofier, Futurism found when testing out the chatbot that although it had a yassified version of Turing in the now-viral video promoting the stunt, the actual experience of chatting with it is incredibly generic.
Unlike Catholic Answers’ defrocked AI priest avatar, chatting with the TuringBot is a lot like using ChatGPT, though when sifting through a company white paper that was, per its byline, penned by the chatbot, it was mighty unclear what framework Genius Group used to create its AI.
Interestingly enough, when we asked the chatbot if it had written the paper creepily titled “Preparing for a Post Turing Test World,” it denied that it had.
In a particularly strange twist given its namesake, the bot also told us that it wasn’t sure if it could pass a Turing test.
We’ve reached out to Genius Group about these odd responses and to ask what tools it used to build out the TuringBot.
All told, you should probably ignore the hype about this extremely run-of-the-mill chatbot — which feels, to be honest, like an allegory of sorts for the whole industry.
More on AI stunts: Pricey AI “Device” Turns Out to Just Be an Android App With Extra Steps
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